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Beyond Telluride

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Betsy Lummis]

When the going gets tough...

DSC_0423  Betsyanew is a start-up founded by entrepreneur and part-time Telluride local Betsy Lummis. The new business is an affirmative response to adversity and a shining example of taking a yoga practice off the mat.

Betsy Lummis was hardwired to practice Karma Yoga. Raised among politicians/philanthropists, she embraced the idea of selfless service, and for 20 years expended time and energy doing fundraising, event coordination, and networking in support of causes she believed in. The Telluride region's Ah Haa School for the Arts and the nascent Telluride Yoga Festival are just two examples of Betsy's largesse.

Betsy Lummis began taking classes at Ah Haa when she first arrived in town 15 years ago. Daughter Phoebe has been a summer art camper at the school for seven consecutive summers.

10 July, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Deidra Krois on the Festival]

RF09_poster Ridgway, Colorado, is much more than a bedroom community for Telluride.

The town is famous – or infamous – as the location for several movies, including "How the West Was Won," and one of actor John Wayne's late great movies, "True Grit," (1969), in which Wayne stars as Rooster Cogburn. The True Grit Cafe is filled with John Wayne memorabilia, but as far as we know, no drunken, one-eyed federal marshals.

Ridgway boasts an abundance of wildlife: mountain lions, badgers, deer, elk, bears, coyotes, and bald eagles are indigenous to the area. And a river runs through it.

The Uncompaghre is a great source for trout fishing and this weekend, the focus of Ridgway's second annual River Festival. The Mosaic Community Project, a local nonprofit dedicated to sustainable living practices, environmental awareness, and the arts, organized the FREE watershed celebration,11 a.m – 9 p.m., downtown, in and around Rollans Park.

26 June, 2009 /

[click"Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Ted Hoff]

IMG_0793 In 2000, Telluride audiences saw the (now departed) Lizard Head Theatre Company's production of "Sylvia",  A.R. Gurney's hit comedy. The play is about a talking dog, part Lab, part poodle and entirely femme fatale. The comedy's all too familiar barbs about marriage, unspoken needs for connection, a sense of why we are here and feelings about out pets hit never failed to hit their mark: We have met the nut cases and they are us.

"Sylvia" was perfect for a town like Telluride which long ago went to the dogs. I personally know many grown-ups, including some of my friends, who get down on the floor with their canine darlings and shower them with terms of endearment such  as "sugar," "my beautiful angel,""pumpkin," and "sweetheart." They – okay, mea culpa, we –  spoil our furry friends with treats and marrow bones from Clark's. (A few – and don't ask me who – even stuff them with peanut butter once the marrow is gone, and stick them in the freezer to make doggie popsicles, guilt bones for when we leave them alone in the house.)

06 June, 2009 /

Thursday evening, 7 p.m., Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library, enjoy a recap of the Mudd Butts' April trip to Wondo Genet, Ethiopia.  Local trip participants and staffers Wendy Brooks and Luke Brown host a narrated slide show of the trip, and play excerpts from the...

27 May, 2009 /

Astronaut John Grunsfeld has been to Telluride Mountainfilm twice, the first time in 2000, and the second in 2006.

IN 2006, John spoke on the subject was ET, NASA's search for planets with "life signatures." His objective: to help reframe people's thinking about life in the universe. He also addressed "Man, Moon, and Beyond," how NASA was planning its next push towards manned missions. Finally, John provided an astronaut’s eye view of the mountain ranges of our blue planet, not from the Hubble – which Grunsfeld has been in charge of repairing – but from his own Hasselblad. But the Hubble has been one of the astronaut's pet project for years.

18 May, 2009 /

The consensus is that Telluride is a place " to die for." But the phrase is simply a figure of speech to describe the physical beauty of our surroundings.

Last week in New York,  on April 30, friends invited us to attend the Sixth Annual Foreign Policy Lecture and Benefit given by the nonprofit Network 20/20.

Former U.S. Senator/Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle was the evening's guest speaker on the subject of "America's Role in Global Security." During his lecture the senator observed, "People with nothing to live for, find something to die for;" there was no mistaking the cold reality surrounding the genesis of terrorist impulses. His point: "civility and decency" towards our global neighbors are "strategic imperatives." We need to stop regarding people on the other side of the world as The Other.

06 May, 2009 /

The last weekend in April is a wild time to go visit neighboring Utah – Moab, Utah that is. Every year at that time hundreds of motor heads, bikers, kids, teenagers, moms, dads, hot shots, hot rods, antique, vintage and classic cars descend upon this...

03 May, 2009 /

IMG_0346 After a brief stop at home in Telluride after our visits to West Coast family, Sus and I left on the next phase of our Spring travels on Friday, 17 April. For those of you who were watching Colorado weather during that time, you know it probably wasn't the most auspicious departure date. But, ever optimistic, we left anyway.

The webcams on Monarch Pass looked nasty, so we chose to go on I-70. That looked like a good decision until just short of Vail. With an electronic sign showing that Vail Pass was closed, we turned off at Minturn, drove in rain/snow mix for a few miles, then in heavy snow. At Leadville, we found that Fremont Pass was closed, and learned that Denver was getting hammered. We had planned to spend the night with friends in Denver- oops!, change in plan. A welcome beer (or two) and a burger at Rosie's in Leadville, then a little time to make a new plan, and time for bed.

27 April, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Kent Tompkins]

Tompkins uses words/images to go "Beyond Shamanic Visions" April 22  at Wilkinson Library in Telluride

4-22 Shamanic Telluriders may be exceptions to the rule. We tend to march to our own drum. However, in this Piscean Age, the rest of the world has made like sheep, relying on bellwethers for guidance to the Promised Land. According to healer/counseler/documentary photographer Kent Tompkins that mindset is about to become toast. Just as the flower children of "Hair" sang: "It is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius," when each individual becomes capable of spiritual awareness without the intercession of religious authority.

To date, the way of the seeker has been littered with metaphysical possibilities, rituals, prayers and lessons entirely from ancient cultures, largely from the East. Yoga, Sufis, I Ching, Kaballah are on a long list of examples.

20 April, 2009 /

As promised a photo of Ralph Dinosaur performing at Telluride end of ski season festivities from 22 years ago. It's just a teaser - the daffodils are calling for a bicycle tour around the Skagit Valley. Incriminating photos to follow. In the meantime, can...

04 April, 2009 /